2024 Safety Preview: Still not getting much respect! … Unfortunately, safety is one of those positions, along with the interior offensive line and inside LBs, that just don’t know have a lot of value on draft day, especially in the very early rounds. No safety, for example, was selected in the opening round in three of the past four years, including 2023 when Alabama’s Brian Branch was the first player at the position, but not until the middle of the second round. As well, no safety has been selected with a top ten pick since 2017 when the NY Jets chose Jamal Adams with the 6th overall, while no safety has been selected within the first 5 picks since 2010 when Eric Berry was selected 5th overall by Kansas City. In fact, Berry was the only the second safety picked with a top 5 selection in the past three decades. On the other hand, when safeties are taken in the opening round it is usually in the latter part. As well, it doesn’t appear that more than three safeties have been selected anywhere in the opening round in the modern era.
And, unfortunately, it does not appear, at least at this time, that any of those trends are going to change dramatically at the 2024 draft where there will be some good players at the position, just none with elite potential. If there is a plus for the position, though, is that there is some depth among that next tier of safeties which includes Javon Bullard of Georgia, USC’s Calen Bullock, Kamren Kinchens of Miami, Cooper Dejean of Iowa and Malachi Moore of Alabama among others. Bullard, who emerged as one of the leaders of Georgia’s national championship defence – he was the defensive MVP in both the Dawgs’ CFP championship game win over TCU as well their semi-final victory over Ohio State – just makes plays all over the field, but at barely 5-10, 180, he’s somewhat undersized for a safety. Meanwhile, Bullock and Kinchens are both ball-hawking FS-types who had 5 and 6 picks respectively last fall, while Dejean is more a prototype SS, although he also had 5 interceptions last fall. Pro scouts are also intrigued to see what they get in Moore this fall; he was a big-time recruit who earned freshman All-America honors in 2020, but really struggled to get playing time the past couple of seasons. Scouts are also hoping to see a healthy Jalen Catalon at Texas this fall. He actually made several regular All-America teams in a breakout redshirt freshman year in 2020 when he had 99 tackles and 3 picks, but he barely played because of injuries the past two campaigns. For the moment, here is our preliminary ranking of the 2024 safety position.
